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London’s buses and the whole “Ex-Gay” thing.

After something light and funny yesterday, we now turn our attention to a more serious issue that has cropped up in London over the last few days. Yesterday, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, stepped into the spotlight and officially banned a series of adverts that were to run across 26 buses. You can read all about the ruckus that this is causing in today’s link.

These ads were, as you will see, a response to some ads that were run by Stonewall, an LGBTQ advocacy group. Should these ads have been banned? If the Stonewall ads were run then why shouldn’t the Ex-Gay ads have been allowed to run? Here is the difference from my perspective; sexuality is, in my mind (and a lot other people’s too), fluid and often changes for people over their course of their lives. But this is a natural and organic thing that seems to occur. These groups advocate therapy to force that conversion or fluidity of sexuality which appears to be at odds with the fluidity that seems to occur naturally. As such, that kind of therapy can cause even more problems.

Representing sexuality as an illness, as Boris Johnson said, is very troubling and his been pretty much disavowed by all major medical groups. So having fringe groups that perpetuate this is troubling. So I think that this decision is right, and you won’t often see me agreeing with Boris…..